


i can never get used to the warmth of the sun

by titus (lostillusion)



Series: The Witch & the Priest [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship, Self-Indulgent, Slow Burn, how would you even tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9922805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostillusion/pseuds/titus
Summary: Tharja and Libra settle into a bar, and despite Libra's hatred for sweat and heat—two things that often came with the desert—he thinks it's okay. As long as Tharja is able to find a home in the sand.





	

**Author's Note:**

> you can actually feel the shift of the style because i wrote this in between days i hate myself

He sighs, cherishing what was left of his drink. The bar rumbles behind him, and he tries to stretch as much as he can that was respectable to the surrounding people (none of that absurd “all arm and leg” that Vaike preferred, or the boisterous yawn he often let out afterwards). As he turned his neck to crack it, he couldn’t help but throw a glance at his ever quiet companion. He watches her sharp awareness like one would at a stray cat, adjusting to her new home.

He was about to say his phrase again, to urge a response out of her—mostly to get away from the cries of the drunkards and to be filled with a different music in his ears—but, as always, she is faster than any of the words he could assemble together in his own mind.

“That is where we seem to differ then.” Her hunched figure becomes straighter, it seemed, and even with the hood he could still feel the eyes on him, aware and alert. “All my life, I have chased that same sun that you ran from.”

His fingers twitch at the challenge to his integrity, and inhales the smoke and wood of the bar. Instead, he counts the seconds until his exhales the toxin, and curls his fingers. He opens his mouth once more to reply, but again, she is quick. Like a fox dancing in a prairie.

“Plegia. What do you think of when you think of Plegia?” The question comes out more like a statement, a twisting fact that people mull over. Of course, the first thing that passes his eyesight is a falling grace, the woman he idolized that was said to be the next Savior. His lips are dry, there is no spit to swallow.

Tharja accepts the silence. She is no Ylissean. She doesn’t understand the fleeting images that pass through Libra’s faded eyes, and maybe she never will. She turns her head back to the rough crowd and her words ring louder than the union of hands to wood.

“Plegia is the cradle for the sun to accept. In Ylisse, there is sometimes cold and sometimes warmth. But in Plegia, there is only warmth. Perhaps that’s why there are so many that forget how to reciprocate such heat.” There is no pause for him to intervene, and so he submits his ears to her flippant mood. “But I have never forgotten the warmth. When I separate from it, I can only long for it until we cross an even warmer sun.”

Libra jokes, the tension in his hands have yet to vanish. He hides it by leaning into one fist with his face, and letting the other hide between his thighs. “You must be dying in Regna Ferox then, where the sun has yet to rise.”

“Yes.” There is no mirth in her eyes. “It is why I will chase Robin to the ends of time.”

Libra startles. His eyes are wide, but he is not looking at her. He is thankful that he has blocked his face with his fist. He does not want to know what face he is making through her glassy orbs.

“Are you lonely, then?” He says before he can clasp a glove to his running mouth. “You haven’t been to Ylisse after they returned.”

There is a quiet. Her straight posture is not straight anymore, and Libra hastens a small peek through his peripheral vision. Her robe that hides her body so securely glimmers in the faded light. The sheen moves along with her in waves, traveling through the back of the hood to the front of it.

He is rewarded with a decisive “no”. Libra’s head moves, and his hair falls from his shoulder to his back as he moves his whole body to look at her. He finds that she is looking at him as well, through her hood. They stare each other for a moment, almost endless in Libra’s perspective. He wants to say something, anything would be fine at that point. Yet, the words escape him. There are no flowers blooming at his lips; there is no epiphany. There is just a muted will to speak, only to stare back at the large wall that prevents him to.

Instead, as always, Tharja speaks for him. Quietly, as she turns her head, “you’re good company” and maybe that’s all that needed to be said. They remained quiet as they watched the boisterous crowd dwindle to nothing.

* * *

On the light to a new, sweltering day, Libra regrets his choice of attire. They were only supposed to be in the town for two days: one for the bazaar and another to rest. Yet, here they are for a third day during the time of the summer heat. Summer heat. In the summer. In the desert.

If Libra’s own hand won’t stop him, then he’s sure the heat will find a way to end him.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Tharja was without her hood, as she had given it to Libra out of pity, and she is left to fend the heat off herself. However, she seemed perfectly fine and not a sweaty puddle of flesh. How unfair, was the only thought that came across his mind. “We’re only going to be here for a couple of hours, and then we can say good bye to the desert.”

Recalling the previous conversation, Libra wants to reassure her that he doesn’t mind the heat so long as they’re not literally in the middle of the desert, but discards the thought knowing it will create more humor than reassurance. Instead, he holds the robe tighter around his body, the wards bright in the corner of his eyes, and says: “we can always come back, when the heat isn’t so willing to kill you with its rays.”

She laughs, still not facing him. “I would like that.”

Libra isn’t sure where they’re going after leaving the desert. Initially, he accompanied Tharja out of worry that she’ll slink back into the darkness now that their purpose was done after Chrom’s victory. So he followed her around, made sure she didn’t go back to assassination and hexing. Yet, here they were, listless and in the middle of the sandy dunes of her home. For the first time in his life, the priest isn’t sure to give the woman his advice.

Libra knows he should tell her to come back with him to Ylisse, find a better life there than in Plegia, still trying to recover from the madness that was the war. But he knows that Plegia is where she is comfortable. She doesn’t enjoy the richness of Ylisse, and she is disgusted at Ferox because of the cold. Only in the dryness sand of Plegia can soothe her everlasting homesickness.

There is a moral dilemma stirring in him that he isn’t willing to pick up, because looking at his companion so content as if she had found happiness for the first time in her life seemed to overweigh anything he was willing to offer.

So he decides ultimately her choice was hers, and he will continue watching over her. Though he is aware that the lines of watching over her and wanting to care for her are blurring in the storm of his mind.  

“We can stay for another day.” He laments as the words are quick to spill and how quickly she turns to him.

“Are you sure?” There is not smile, only anticipation.

“Only if I get to hog the robe.” There it was, the flowers blooming on her face as her mask cracks.

“Wonderful,” she is almost sighing as she says this, turning away to return her watch over the bazaar. “I was regretting not getting a book when I had the chance. I hope it’s still there, somewhere.”

Libra instantly felt the weight of his robe, hiding the possible book she wished for. He straightens his back, and walks to be by her side. She looks at him, her smile already falling from her face.

“What?” He shrugs, and opens his robe to reveal the book. She stares at it as he lays the book across her open hands. She looks at the book, feels the cover with lingering fingers, and then looks at him with a shine in her eyes that he is growing accustomed to.

Nothing is said between them as Tharja clenches the book to her chest, her arms crossed to protect the object. She bows her head, and Libra bows his. Both thanking each other for two separate things, without words. Tharja turns back to the bazaar, with eyes Libra can’t see from his angle. The wind sighs through the gap between them, and as Libra is sweating through the robe despite the wards, he thinks he can live in the excruciating desert if his presence made this witch beam so brightly.


End file.
